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Running Projects Running Groups Books and Reading ListNutritious playing day
An intensive day 'workshopping' that leaves you burning to practice on everyone you encounter, in a playful way, for the rest of the day has to be a hit.
Friday 4th March. I left the London Art House post Workshop Workshop on a high. Waiting for the Uber Cab to the airport, from where Id fly home to Madrid, I suddenly felt the need to invigorate the environment, starting with the passersby, then the cab driver, and finally the passengers. How come? Ill tell you.
A day with Kate McEnery-Evans, Iain Carruthers and co. left me full of workshopping energy, and ready to, well, workshop. And in a fun way, like hey, do you want to play? And how about playing to get to the core? And even more, how about playing to achieve useful goals and learn more along the way?
It was a day that helped make that happen: encouraging involvement, and making people from different backgrounds feel comfortable about mixing, about opening their hearts and minds.
One surprising and innovative exercise was the idea of bringing concepts/strategies/proposals from brands in different categories to break the rules of the one were working with. As with other tools used that day, those which change the way we live a brand/product/service are enriching (recognising clichés, looking at the worst practice and turn it on its head).
Drawing in the workshops to break the intellectual concentration was a great moment in a packed day, and a useful tool for the future, too. Ideas, apart from techniques, I will cherish include:
1. The importance of laughter, always a personal instinctive trick, is a powerful tool in many circumstances.
2. The importance of relaxing breaks, and an understanding that timings will never be realistic (but should still be tied as closely to the program as possible).
3. The importance of splitting responsibilities among facilitators: one person cant simultaneously be in charge of getting the logistics in order and taking care of the quality of processes and insights search.
The fresh and fun ideas that I emerged with are now useful tools in my pocket to engage workshop participants from all areas. It was a nutritious playing day!
Paloma Diaz Zeeuwen
Independent Market Researcher
This article was first published in InBrief magazine, May 2016
Copyright © Association for Qualitative Research, 2016
About the author

Paloma Diaz Zeeuwen
Paloma Díaz Is a naturally curious sociologist who came into research through journalism. She started researching market and social environment 15 years ago and, always willing to try new techniques, is now excited by participative methodologies and design thinking. Bright minds and open hearts, embedded in a sense of humour, are her favourite combination for a fulfilling research project.